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Reposted by Martin Johnsson

Kevin Zollman @kevinzollman.com · 1d

A reoccurring frustration for philosophers of science: Many scientists know how to do science like people know how to ride a bike. When they reflect on the practice of science, they repeat platitudes about how science works. Those platitudes are often wrong, sometimes even about their own field

D. J. Hicks @danhicks.bsky.social · 1d

*sighs in philosopher of science*

Looking for confirmatory evidence is an entirely normal part of science. The primary problem here is the eugenics and the fascism, not the lies to children about "the scientific method."

One Bluesky account is quoting another. Inner post has a video of RFK Jr., some person I don't recognize (Tylenol and autism guy, maybe?), Marco Rubio (I think), and Trump. Post text: "RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: 'It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."

Outer post text: "We're doing studies to prove it (* not how studies work)"

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Martin Johnsson @mrtnj.bsky.social · 1d

I also particularly liked Gwendal Restoux's (INRAE) talk on genetic resources and potential strategies to make use thereof, and Anna Wolc's (Hyline, Iowa State) thorough update on the state of machine learning for poultry breeding and management.

Martin Johnsson @mrtnj.bsky.social · 1d

And Tanmay Debnath (University of Edinburgh) talked about ML for phenotyping of the tibia.

Outwith of our project, there were more contributions about the keel, with genetic parameters from Pascal Duenk (Wageningen), and a poster on keel ossification from Lisa Hildebrand (FLI).

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Martin Johnsson @mrtnj.bsky.social · 1d

We had a pretty strong lineup from our department and the international FFAR keel bone project:

I talked about our genomic selection efforts, Khrystyna Kurta about genome-wide association and bone composition, and Moh Sallam about ML and new phenotypes for the keel.

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Martin Johnsson @mrtnj.bsky.social · 1d

European Society for Poultry Genetics meeting 2025, some impressions.

#espg2025 #WPSA

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Reposted by Martin Johnsson

bioRxiv Genetics @biorxiv-genetic.bsky.social · 24d

When large-effect damaging alleles enter small populations https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.09.11.675554v1

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Martin Johnsson @mrtnj.bsky.social · 10d

Researcher day with the Beijer laboratories. Here: Elin Hernlund, my fellow Beijer researcher in the laboratory for animal science, talking about her models of shape and posture of domestic animals.

Elin Hernlund presenting in front of a slide that shows 3D models of a human, a horse, a dog and a cow.

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Martin Johnsson @mrtnj.bsky.social · 12d

(It doesn't help that Prisma's import publications function has been broken since what, 2019? Please, pretty please with sugar on top, let us enter the publication list as a pdf like VR does.)

Martin Johnsson @mrtnj.bsky.social · 12d

This year, the profile was cut down to a small text box, and we're back to list of 10 publications to be entered in Prisma. Gone are the ambitions to include more stuff than publications; it's now not even clear whether preprints count.

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Martin Johnsson @mrtnj.bsky.social · 12d

Last year's call introduced the academic profile for describing the merits of applicants in a broader way than before, including a wider understanding of an academic contribution than just a publication list. It came with a prescribed template, which was unfortunately quite awkward and bad.

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Martin Johnsson @mrtnj.bsky.social · 12d

The new format for the Formas Explore 2025 call--I say it's an improvement overall. Fewer boxes to fill in, and in the end a bit more space for implementation and references, so one doesn't have to hunt characters as much.

The new format of the academic profile is a step backwards, though.

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Martin Johnsson @mrtnj.bsky.social · 14d

On that note, it's time to seriously learn Bibtex, so I can let go of the Zotero plugin and rid myself of Microsoft Word.

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Martin Johnsson @mrtnj.bsky.social · 14d

Here's one powerful opening sentence:

"Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in the 21st with social media."

Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ @olivia.science · Sep 6

Finally! 🤩 Our position piece: Against the Uncritical Adoption of 'AI' Technologies in Academia:
doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

We unpick the tech industry’s marketing, hype, & harm; and we argue for safeguarding higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, & scientific integrity.
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Abstract: Under the banner of progress, products have been uncritically adopted or
even imposed on users — in past centuries with tobacco and combustion engines, and in
the 21st with social media. For these collective blunders, we now regret our involvement or
apathy as scientists, and society struggles to put the genie back in the bottle. Currently, we
are similarly entangled with artificial intelligence (AI) technology. For example, software updates are rolled out seamlessly and non-consensually, Microsoft Office is bundled with chatbots, and we, our students, and our employers have had no say, as it is not
considered a valid position to reject AI technologies in our teaching and research. This
is why in June 2025, we co-authored an Open Letter calling on our employers to reverse
and rethink their stance on uncritically adopting AI technologies. In this position piece,
we expound on why universities must take their role seriously toa) counter the technology
industry’s marketing, hype, and harm; and to b) safeguard higher education, critical
thinking, expertise, academic freedom, and scientific integrity. We include pointers to
relevant work to further inform our colleagues.